posted: August 25, 2010

I recently moved to Providence, Rhode Island and sketching has been a great way to get used to a new place. Here's some simple stuff I've been doing in between jobs, trips to IKEA and unpacking boxes.

posted: August 23, 2010

The XIX century meant freedom for Latin America and today many of its countries are celebrating the Bicentennial of their liberation from Spain with cultural events and art festivals. I was recently asked by El Malpensante, my favorite literary magazine from Colombia, to do a piece for a show/publication titled Bicentennial Pop, in which 20 illustrators were commissioned to re-interpret portraits of famous patriot heroes.

Undoubtably the best part of the assignment was that I got the chance to recreate a miniature painting done by José María Espinosa, an ancestor of mine who besides documenting with his work many battles of the independent war, also fought with the patriots and became a national figure.

Pictured below, José María Espinosa's miniature painting over ivory of General Nariño and my interpretation of the same piece. Espinosa taught himself the miniature technique by studying the work of European artists from the XVI century and became a master at it.

I added little happy faces all over the General's uniforme as a tribute to Espinosa's cartoons he did of local characters. I have a decent collection of those and I'm in the process of scanning them and cleaning them up for a most deserved second post about the artist.
Thanks to Mario Jursich for the invitation. This one was a treat!

posted: June 17, 2010

A great compilation of Japanese inspired kawaii art has been put together by my talented friend Charuca in the recently published book, I♥KAWAII.
The term Kawaii (Japanese for cute) represents a whole movement of popular culture that started in the seventies in Japan and has become one of the most iconic and recognizable graphic phenomena in the world today.
To me, the most beautiful thing about this book is that through a vast array if styles, one can see how the movement has been visually translated into different cultures that have assimilated its essence without doing a mere copy of it.
 

I'm honored to be included in this fantastic group of artists and friends, including Aranzi Aronzo, Bubi Au Yeung, Catalina Estrada, Charuca, Devil Robots, FriendsWithYou, Laura Osorno, Mari-Chan, Meomi, Mizuka, Peskimo, Superdeux, Tado and many more!
 

I♥KAWAII is available online HERE and worldwide in the next couple of months.
If you are interested in getting a signed copy + a super cute pack of postcards by Charuca, you can contact her directly.
Thank you, Charuca + Monsa!
 
cover illustration © Charuca
 

posted: June 8, 2010

The symptoms of World Cup fever are starting to mess up my concentration at work, but luckily I got this great assignment to design different characters based on best female soccer player in the world, Marta Vieria da Silva. Reading about her and watching a ton of videos for reference, I discovered that besides being talented with the ball (and really cute), Marta is a sweet and charismatic woman who's inspiring a whole new generation of Fútbol girls.

My daughter Sofía is one of them. She's a lot of fun to watch because in the field she turns into this little machine determined to carry the ball to the other side, usually for somebody else to score. These sketches and pics of her during practice are not recent but I love looking at them when I need a little motivation.

Oh, oh... I feel the fever coming back again, I better go and ask my little tornado if she's up for a friendly match. I promise to post close-ups of my illos of Marta as soon as my client's website goes life.

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